


Speaking Out

by ArtisticRainey



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Butterflies-verse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:50:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5133307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtisticRainey/pseuds/ArtisticRainey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reporter gets an exclusive interview with the elusive John Tracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speaking Out

**Author's Note:**

> You need to have read Butterflies to understand what's being referred to in this fic.

I’m ten minutes early for our interview – or so I think. When I arrive at the hotel, John Tracy is already in the lobby. On seeing me, he unwinds his long form from the plush armchair and stands. At an impressive six feet and two inches, he towers over me. I can’t help but feel inadequate as he reaches a long-fingered hand out to take my own. His hand shake is firm, polite. His smile is easy, although there’s something glimmering in the back of his eyes that reminds me why we’re here in the first place. We’re not here for pleasantries.

As we settle into the hotel room, I can’t help but look around. It’s New York boutique chic. Even the French Press John uses to make us coffee looks quirky. More interesting, though, is the scattering of toys that litter the floor. There’s everything from Super Power Bots figures to a 100th Anniversary Barbie – with its hair shorn short.

When he sees me looking at it, John smiles.

“I was under instructions to do that,” he says as he offers me a cup. “Lyra is very particular about what she wants.”

Of course, Lyra Tracy is John’s daughter. And how she came to exist is part of what we are to discuss.

John folds himself into a chair across from mine and places his hands in his lap. He’s waiting. He’s unsure. He doesn’t know what I’ll ask first. Perhaps he’s even regretting the decision to have this interview in the first place. Whatever it is, there’s a flatness to his face that wasn’t there before.

I start off easy.

“So where is your daughter at the moment?” I ask.

He face relaxes and so do his hands. He tells me that she’s off for an adventure in Central Park with his _dadaí_ – Irish for father. I can tell that he doesn’t really want to talk about his relationship with Elijah Lynch. It takes all of my strength not to ask him about it, considering the platinum ring shining on his finger. But that’s not what this meeting is about.

Instead, I shift in my chair and tap my pad. It’s time to get on with things.

“What prompted you to agree to this interview?” I ask. “Your family have been life-long avoiders of the press.”

There’s a tiny smile on his face as I say that. Billionaire Jeff Tracy and his five sons are elusive creatures, shying away from the limelight at all costs – despite their combined illustrious careers. A business mogul, several astronauts, a writer, an artist, an Air Force captain and a W.A.S.P officer, an Olympic gold medallist and a world-famous racing driver.

John shifts and picks up his coffee cup. He doesn’t drink.

“I decided it was time to speak out,” he says. “It’s time to break the silence. It's a subject that no one talks about. Some people don't even think we exist. But we do. And it's time to be heard."

Nearly six years ago, John Tracy was kidnapped from the side of a road in England. He was held prisoner for ten months and was the subject of continued drugging and sexual abuse. Eventually, after the birth of his daughter, he managed to escape.

Because of course, this was not another John Wayne Gacy or a Jeffery Dahmer of the Twenty-First Century. The abuser wasn’t a man at all. She was a woman – and that’s what John wants to talk about.

“From the very start, I’ve come up against people who don’t believe a woman can rape a man,” he says. “I’ve heard all the arguments. It’s physically impossible. Men can easily overpower women. Men always want sex. Women simply wouldn’t do it. The list goes on and on.”

The disgust in the little laugh he gives makes my chest tighten.

“Unfortunately,” he continues, “the lack of belief isn’t an issue that’s confined to male rape. It’s a disgrace that, in this day and age, there are still people who won’t report abuse because they’re afraid they won’t be believed. Even in the 2070s, some people are still stuck in this backward way of thinking that rape has to be rough, that it has to be in a dark alley, and that if a person dresses in a certain way, it’s their own fault.

“But it doesn’t have to be so dramatic. The simple act of ignoring someone saying ‘no’ is what we should focus on. Because when someone goes against the wishes of another and engages in sexual behaviour without consent, that’s abuse. It doesn’t have to be at knife-point. You don’t need to be bundled into the trunk of a car and tied to a bedpost for it to be rape.”

The flatness is gone from his face now. His eyes glitter with anger. His expression is to earnest that my heart aches.

“What was done to me was extreme,” he says, then finally sips his coffee. “That’s part of the reason why I’m speaking out today. In some ways, I’m lucky. No, really,” he adds at my incredulous expression. “My case was very brutal and very public. And, crucially, my abuser was jailed. I exist in a state of ‘being believed’ but there are hundreds, thousands of people – who knows how many the real total is? – out there who are suffering in silence because they haven’t been believed, that they’re afraid of being judged and stigmatised. That they’re going to be accused of being weak or being a liar. Because that’s how people perceive it. Why weren’t you strong enough to fight them off? Why couldn’t you escape?

“The answer to that is most likely something like in my case. My attacker emotionally manipulated me into staying. She said that she would kill her daughter if I left.”

Here, of course, John means Lyra’s older half-sister. A woman, he tells me, who is now studying at Oxford.

“I couldn’t take any risks,” he continues. “I couldn’t try to leave. What if I had escaped and she had killed her daughter? How could I have lived with that? Could _you_ live with that blood on your hands?”

Instinctively, I look down at my fingers. Then I look back up and shake my head. Of course I couldn’t.

“Right,” John says. “So I stayed to protect her. And I’m just glad that I was eventually able to get us out of there.”

The climax of the ordeal was a high-profile car chase that, miraculously, culminated in a dramatic emancipation, courtesy of International Rescue.

Prompted on that subject, John ducks his head.

“I’ll always be very grateful to them,” he says. “It was just pure luck that they happened to be in the area and overhead my call to the police. I’m not sure how things would have ended if they hadn’t intervened.”

Then his face darkens.

“Again, I’m lucky. Lucky they were there, lucky to get out alive. But not everyone is. There are people out there right now – of all genders – who have been the subject of cruelty and abuse and they’re too scared to come forward because of what society might think. They don’t want to become ‘the person who said they were raped.’ There’s an expectation that they need to prove that they were the victim of a crime. And, for many of those people, the ordeal of having to _prove_ they were abused is too much to bear.”

Even though I know the answer, I think it’s important to ask what he hopes to achieve from speaking out about his ordeal.

He sips his coffee again and smiles.

“All I want is for people to know that we exist. Men can be victims of rape. Many people who suffer abuse still don’t come forward. And I also hope that someone, somewhere, might read this interview and realise that it’s not their fault. That society should be more accepting. That it’s not right for them to feel isolated and hopeless. It’s a dark place to be and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

“All I want is for people to know that they are valid and important, and that if they are the victim of a crime, they should report it – and not fear the consequences.”

We chat for a few more minutes but I know my time is up. John is going to meet his daughter and fiancé in Central Park. When I ask if he’ll ride the carousel, he laughs.

“I don’t think I’ll have a choice!”

As I step out into the crisp New York autumn air, I have a lot to think about. The points John raises are valid. Even now, there are countless victims of crimes – sexual or not – who are too afraid to speak out. Society is judgemental, even in the twenty-seventies. We have a long way to go before the stigmas are completely wiped away.

That is not the only thing I think about, though.

I think about the strength I have just witnessed. I think about the torture endured by one man. And I think about how I would have responded, what I would have done. And I know I would have ended up sobbing in a corner or staring into the bottom of a bottle.

There’s something that goes beyond bravery in John Tracy. It’s one thing to be brave and stand up to your attacker. It’s another thing to show courage and manage to escape a horrific situation. But it’s something entirely different to stand up, to put your head on the parapet and demand to be heard by a society that doesn’t believe in you.

He shows tenacity of spirit and he champions an unwavering desire to tell the truth.

In my opinion, John Tracy is not a hero. He is so much more.

He is an embodiment of what it truly means to be human.


End file.
